Overnight

This past weekend was Labor Day… BBQs, friends, the last bit of sunshine… saying goodbye to summer. This week also marks 6 months since my life went through an upheaval and I decided to change my world. Looking back at where I was it is so surreal to know it has been such a significant amount of time that has passed. Six months of major work – emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical. Six months of having moments where breathing was difficult. Six months of plenty of tears, anger, and confusion. Six months of moments of wanting to give up, throw in the towel, lay down on the couch and not get back up. Six months of having so many moments of just wanting to say “forget this” and keep doing the easy thing.

But, it has also been six months of working every single day to be better. Every. Single. Day. Six months of absurdly early mornings, late nights, long work days. Six months of pushing through the mental pain, through the physical pain, through the doubt, through the challenges. Six months of falling down A LOT, but getting back up and dusting myself off and going at it again. Six months of getting punched in the guts by life, but learning to fight back and be strong. Who I was in March is not the girl I am now. I’ll never be that girl again. I’m still me – I’m just more me than I ever have been before. I wish I could say I don’t have days anymore where I’m not angry or sad, but that would be a lie. Just because we choose to change our lives, choose to be better, choose to walk away from situations… we can’t shut off any negative feelings. We don’t get to pick all the good moments and forfeit all the ugly ones.

I’m still a work in progress. I’ve had a lot of slipups during this “journey” – the only thing that makes these moments worth it are that after each one I never laid there and wallowed in it (too long) or let it break me. I got up and tried again. Each time made me stronger. It is almost unbelievable to me to see where I am and to look back at where I was six months ago. To start anything is so scary – you know what’s even more scary? To think where you’re going to be three months down the road… six months down the road… a year down the road. To me, THAT is the scary thing. Because, what if you fail? What if it’s not what you think it will look like? What if you’re not different? What if, what if, what if.

This time was different – I didn’t think about what things were going to look like. I just had to start. Sure, I had hopes and I’ll tell you now – none of them came to pass like I wanted. I’ve had to completely trust God and like throwing confetti up in the air, let the pieces land where they may and trust this was how it was meant to happen. When I have tried to control certain situations they just became worse… lesson here: sometimes you have to let go of the need to control. I feel like I have written about this so much and it’s because this is a huge struggle for me. Not being in control is scary and the unknown can be terrifying at times.

I think most people think that just this past six months has been a journey of fitness and while it has and more recently it’s been a huge part of it, it’s really been a journey of healing, restoration, and changing who I am on the inside. It’s been hard. And, I have to make a deliberate decision every day to work at it. It can be overwhelming and exhausting. Just like losing weight and becoming fit, there is no magic pill. It takes two things: hard work and dedication. It’s saying “No” to yourself when you want to give in, it’s depriving yourself of all those things that feel good in the moment but just wreck your emotional state later, it’s recognizing situations and people for who they are not who you want them to be, it’s recognizing the ugly parts of yourself that need to be trimmed and weeded, it’s admitting when you’re wrong, when you’ve been hurtful… it’s not pretty. Change is not pretty. You don’t look at a cocoon and say, “Wow, look how gorgeous that is!” There is nothing pretty about it. But, what comes out is what’s beautiful. It’s made beautiful through struggle and refinement, through solitude and deprivation, through darkness and moments of near suffocation.

So, no, just because I lost 40 lbs and I’m not crying in a bowl of pasta does not a champion make. It’s the daily choice to move forward… it doesn’t really get any easier. I wish I could say it did, believe me. I know I wanted it to be easier. I wanted a cure-all, but that’s not the way life works. The temptations are the same, lots of feelings are the same, circumstances are the same, the world is the same… the only thing that is different is me. You change only to find the same storms swirling around you. Beckoning you to meld into the same-old-same. It’s easier than standing against the forces. But, you’ve been there and you know what it looked like to be a part of the storm and you don’t want that anymore. So, you stand against the winds and the dirt that gets slung on you and you resolve to not go back. To continue to walk forward, to be strong…

This weekend I went out of town for a little mini getaway – mostly to get some rest. I’ve been going so hard for a couple of months and it’s caught up with me. My body is physically run down and exhausted and with my upcoming competition I have to slow down and cut some things out for now. I want to think I can do 110% every day, but unfortunately I can’t right now and I’m okay with that. I’m still pretty tired, but I had such a great weekend with people I love and I feel so much better. More on that later, but it worked out kind of cool it was six months since things have been different for me. I picked up a little reminder to myself of where I’ve been and where I’m going…

It’s never been easy and it’s still not easy, but it’s been worth everything I’ve given up, everything that’s been taken away, and more than that… everything that’s been gained.

“Overnight”

[Chorus:]
If it all just happened overnight,
You wouldn’t know how much it means
If it all just happened overnight,
You would never learn to believe
In what you cannot see…

There’s somethin’ to be said for experience.
Who knows what’s ahead. Keep on goin’.

 

until next time… xoxo, patty lauren